2012 AUTOSPORT Awards

[landogeorgelewis1]

Thanks for the heads up on this will have a good read of the Live Commentary bit. Shame it wasn't streamed this year . would have got more people watching it if they were advertised more .

 

[The Artist.....]

If it was just on "personality", similar to the SPOTY award then I can see why Button got it over the others.
He comes across well on TV (unless you're not a fan, in which case he's a sneaky conniving snake ) and never does anything out of the ordinary.

Brogan
This is something that irritates me every year - people saying "Oh, so and so shouldn't have won the Sports personality of the year, as (s)he has no personality!

SPOTY is NOT a personality competition, it is an award that goes to the "person" who the general public believes has achieved the greatest achievement that year. Personality doesn't have any relation to how personable that person is, but is merely an alternative word for "Sports person" of the year. This is all because when the award was begun, back in the 1950s, the language of the BBC was far more formal, and so "Sports Personality" meant exactly that, a "Personality" from the world of sport... Nothing to do with character etc etc etc. In fact, the dictionary definition of personality is very helpful "a well known person in a certain field, such as sport or entertainment"

(Sorry, rant over).

 

[Brogan]

I believe though that SPOTY is also just to do with fans and who they like best, which is why I made the comparison.

 

[The Artist.....]

Brogan - fair enough - (Sorry - the whole thing about "Personality" drives me mad every single year - as some smart alec always says it, and thinks they're being terribly original....)

As I've said in another post, I suspect this is a case of people voting for Hamilton in the International driver, but then wanting to vote for someone else in the British driver, and this led to a crowding out of Hamilton in the British vote... (It would be interesting to know the vote breakdown, but I doubt we'd ever find that out!)

 

[Brogan]

No worries, I take the point on the "personality" aspect though - perhaps I should have made my original post clearer.

As with any public vote, it's almost always going to come down to personal preference rather than merit.
That's just human nature.

 

[Galahad]

Page 3 of this thread, but can I be the first to say, that as a British world champion in 2012, Rob Huff would have been a very worthy winner.

 

[Brogan]

I would wager that a significant number of people who voted for this award have never heard of him

 

[The Artist.....]

Brogan Galahad
... He's that driver who goes around in the WTCC?

I'm never quite sure where I stand with the WTCC - it seems to me to be the 3rd most popular touring car championship in this country - after BTCC and DTM... However, the BTCC is is dying a death because of its graveyard slot on ITV4, WTCC is relegated to sky, and DTM is just nowhere... Tintop racing (And in fact all forms of motorsport except F1) will always struggle to thrive whilst they're on Satellite tv... (Unfortunately F1 could quite easily go that way too!) (Sorry, this started as a post about WTCC, and became something quite different)

 

[Galahad]

Popularity schmopularity, don't get me started. Sebastien Loeb should win every award there is, even Korean Racing Driver of the Year! And he's not on TV much these days. If WTCC is good enough for him...

 

[Brogan]

As good as he is, I'm not sure Seb Loeb can win British Competition Driver of the Year

 

[gethinceri]

I think Jenson's a lovely boy and it's nice they've given him something to keep him happy when he's away from his lovely driving job.

 

[mnmracer]

I'm sure with England's and France's 'rich' history, there is something British to be found in Loeb's family tree

 

[Mephistopheles]

You maybe getting England mixed up with Scotland mnmracer but I suppose it was a British award and not an English one...

 

[F1 Shift.net]

I can think of two drivers who deserved it more than Button.

Lewis Hamilton and Dario Franchetti.

Not sure how Button won it.

I think he won it by staying at McLaren